Recently, I went to a convenience store to get a soda. As I was walking in, I was stopped by a homeless man out front. He didn’t ask me for money; he asked me for a specific food item. I was taken aback by this singular request, so much so that I smiled, laughed, and said, “Sure.”

Inside the store, there were five people in line in front of me, and I noticed that each of these people stopped on their way out to give the homeless man an item. It was clear that he had asked them as well—and it was working. I was so intrigued by this enterprise that I had to talk to him on my way out.

As I handed him his candy bar, I asked him what had animated his project. He explained that asking people for money didn’t really work for several reasons. First, he figured that homeless people like him ask other people for money all of the time. Asking for something specific made him stand out. I had to agree with that from my own initial reaction.

Second, he said that people don’t trust his motives when he is not specific. He said, “When you ask people for money, they don’t know what you want to do with it. But, when you ask people for food, they know that you are hungry, and they know what that’s like. Then they know that they ain’t wasting their money.”

He continued to opine that the secret to getting what he wanted was to make a reasonable request that didn’t inconvenience the people he was asking. He said, “Askin’ for a candy bar don’t work out on a street corner.” I thought, “This guy is a genius; why is he homeless?” I got in my car forever changed by our encounter.

It’s All in How You Ask

As I pondered his wisdom, I realized that this man had framed “the ask” perfectly. He made specific, reasonable requests of people with which they could comply with minimal effort, minimal cost, and minimal inconvenience. By asking me to buy something that was readily available in the store into which I was already going, it was easy for me to comply. The genius of this ask was that the candy bar cost me almost $2, when I likely would not have given him more than $1 had he asked for money—and I felt less inconvenienced by the guy.

“The Ask” for GP Lenses

With this being the Annual GP Issue of Contact Lens Spectrum, how does this story apply to GP lenses? If you think about it, the answer is “completely.” Getting people to consider GP lenses as an option in a world saturated by soft contact lenses is an “ask” that must be framed properly.

How can you make this ask in a way that stands out, that seems reasonable, that seems specific, and that doesn’t inconvenience patients? What is it about GP lenses that might make patients want to move away from their preconceived notions about contact lenses and more in a direction that probably is not what they would have considered ideal when they walked in? It is one thing to get an existing GP patient to change materials or designs. It is altogether different to get someone who was coming in for one thing to leave with another.

Framing this question properly requires some planning and forethought. It requires practitioners to know the advantages of GP lenses and how to prescribe them efficiently. Script how you would present the benefits to patients, why you are invested in the ask, and why they should be invested, too. You just might be as successful as that homeless guy. CLS